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| Notes: |
| 1. The term arctic designates the vast area encompassed by the Arctic Circle at 66.5ºN. The Arctic Circle is a fixed point on the earth's surface at and above which, due to the curvature of the earth, there is at least one day per year of total light. The Polar Circle at 80ºN, on the other hand, is a more or less arbitrary point designating the area around the North Pole. Therefore, anything that is polar is also arctic and the two terms may be used interchangeably. However, not everything that is arctic is also polar; in this respect, the two terms are not synonymous. |
| 2. This brief summary of the Spitzbergen trip that was the inspiration for the 1931 polar flight is taken primarily from Miethe, Hergesell, et al., Mit Zeppelin nach Spitzbergen. Spitzbergen is the large island in what is now the Svalbard Archipelago. Rather than a remote arctic outpost, a branch of the Gulf Stream along the west coast makes the island relatively ice-free and accessible by ship in the summer months. It was a popular tourist destination during July and August up until World War I. |
| 3. Despite the publicity it generated, the Wilkins submarine expedition seemed doomed from the start. Mechanical problems delayed the departure, then the sub broke down entirely in crossing the Atlantic and had to be towed to Norway for repairs. By the time it finally reached the ice pack north of Spitzbergen, the crew had become so distrustful that they sabotaged the sub in order to prevent a dive. |
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| Bibliography: |
| Duggen, John and Gisela Woodward. Graf Zeppelin Polar Post. UK: Zeppelin |
| Study Group 1995. |
| Eckener, Dr. Hugo. Douglas Robinson, transl. My Zeppelins. New York: |
| Putnam's, 1958. |
| _____. Im Zeppelin über Länder und Meere. Flensburg: Verlagshaus Christian |
| Wolf,1949. |
| Ellsworth, Lincoln. Beyond Horizons. New York: Doubleday, 1938. |
| Miethe, Adolf, Hergesell, Hugo, et al. Mit Zeppelin nach Spitzbergen. Berlin: |
| Deutsches Verlagshaus Bong & Co., 1911. |
| Nicklas, Siegfried, and Rolf Kardel. Die Polarfahrten des Luftschiffes "Graf |
| Zeppelin." Leverkusen: Der Polarphilatelie e.V., 1980 |
| Reuper, Julius. Graf Zeppelin und sein Werk. Leipzig: Verlag von Dr. Max |
| Gehlen, 1926. |
| Saager, Dr. Adolf. Zeppelin, Der Mensch, Der Kämpfer, Der Sieger. Stuttgart: |
| Verlag von Robert Luss, 1916. |
| Vaeth, J. Gordon. Graf Zeppelin: the Aerial Adventure of an Aerial |
| Globetrotter. New York: Harper & Bros., 1958. |
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| Appendix: |
| Famous Graf Zeppelin flights: |
| 1928, Middle Eastern flight |
| 1929, Around-the-World flight |
| 1931, Polar flight |
| 1930-1937, South American service (note: the Graf Zeppelin with Hugo Eckener in command was returning from South America when the Hindenburg burned in 1937). |
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| The LZ designation: |
| Zeppelin airships were numbered in sequential order with the prefix LZ-, for Luftschiff [airship] Zeppelin, beginning with the first Zeppelin airship, LZ-1 that flew for the first time, July 1900. |
| Some well-known Zeppelin airships: |
| LZ-126 (built after World War I) became US ZR III, the Los Angeles. |
| LZ-127 Graf Zeppelin |
| LZ-128 never built. |
| LZ-129 Hindenburg. |
| LZ-130 Graf Zeppelin II |
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